Sunday of Holy Pascha (3-5 of 15)

...continued.

3. The Homily of Saint John Chrysostom

Christ is Risen!

“Whoever is devout and loves God,” – whoever truly honors God and sincerely loves Him, “let him enjoy this good and radiant feast,” – the most glorious Resurrection of Christ, which we now celebrate, and in which the Lord has wondrously shown both His goodness toward the human race, His wisdom in redeeming it from eternal destruction, and His power over the enemies of our salvation.

“Whoever is a wise servant,” who does not hide in vain in the earth the talents given him by God – time, strength, and abilities – nor spends them only on earthly affairs and pleasures, but wisely uses them in the service of the Lord and for the gaining of eternal blessedness, “let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord,” let him become a participant in that spiritual joy which the Lord has prepared for His faithful servants, redeemed by the blood of the Savior.

“Whoever has labored in fasting,” – whoever during the past fast did not remain idle, but diligently labored in the work of his salvation, “let him now receive the denarius,” – he will receive in the gracious fruits of Christ’s Resurrection that reward which God has promised to good workers.

April: Day 14: Teaching 2: Holy Apostles Aristarchus, Pudens and Trophimus of the Seventy

April: Day 14: Teaching 2:
Holy Apostles Aristarchus, Pudens  and Trophimus of the Seventy*
 
(On the Reasons for the Hatred of the Apostles by the World of their Time)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Apostles Aristarchus, Trophimus, and Pudens, whom we commemorate today, were co-workers of the Holy Supreme Apostles Peter and Paul in their apostolic ministry. All of them were beheaded under Emperor Nero.

Aristarchus was converted to Christ by the Apostle Paul; mentioned in the Epistle to the Colossians (Col. 4:10), he was bishop in Apamea of Syria. His end came under Emperor Nero; he was beheaded at the same time as the Apostles Paul, Pudens, and Trophimus.

Saint Pudens, mentioned in the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:21): “Eubulus greets you, as well as Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brethren,” was a Roman senator and a pious man; he received into his house the Holy Supreme Apostles Peter and Paul and all Christians, so that his house served as a kind of church.

Prologue in Sermons: April 14

 To the Common People, That They Also Can Be Heirs of the Kingdom of God

April 14

(A Word from the Paterikon about the vision of Abba Samuel.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

To you, common people, will our word be today, and this is what we shall say to you.

Once the Venerable Samuel, while sitting with the brethren, suddenly felt himself caught up in ecstasy and fell face down. After quite a long time he rose and began to weep bitterly. The brethren begged him to tell them the reason for his weeping. For a long time he did not answer them, and at last he said: “I, brethren, was taken up to judgment and saw a multitude of people going to torment, and a multitude of common people going into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

And so for you, common people, this is a consoling lesson from the Venerable one, that for you also there is great hope to inherit the heavenly dwellings.

But you will no doubt say to me, as is your custom: “I am simple and ignorant; I know nothing — how then shall I enter there?” Very simply, brethren: act as I tell you, and you will seize for yourselves the Kingdom of Heaven.

Sunday of Holy Pascha (1-2 of 15)

Sunday of Holy Pascha

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

1. The Bright Resurrection of Christ

There are many bright and solemn feasts in the Holy Orthodox Church; but none is brighter and more solemn, none more joyful and comforting than the great day of the Resurrection of Christ, when all is clothed in light, the heavens rejoice, the earth is glad, and the whole world celebrates the great victory of our Savior over death and Hades.

This is what the Gospel relates about this glorious and great event. Great Saturday had passed, on the night of which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemos buried the Body of Jesus. The tomb in which He was laid was sealed with a great stone; a guard stood by it — the chief priests and Pharisees persuaded Pilate and set it there to guard the tomb until the third day, lest the disciples of Christ come by night, steal His body, and say to the people: 'He has risen from the dead" (cf. Matt. 27:64). But on the third day after His sufferings on the Cross and His death, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, according to the writings of the prophets. This took place after midnight from Saturday to the following day (now Sunday). The soldiers who stood guard saw that after the Resurrection of the Savior an Angel rolled away the stone from the tomb, and they were witnesses of the earthquake that occurred at that time. The appearance of the Angel who rolled away the stone, according to the Evangelist Matthew, was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow (cf. Matt. 28:3). This appearance of the Angel, his radiant garment, was a living expression of his heavenly joy and the bright triumph in heaven, which on this great day, according to the testimony of the Holy Church, was filled with a special light. Struck and terrified by this miracle, the soldiers fell down and for some time remained as if senseless. Coming to themselves, they went and told everything that had happened to the chief priests. And they, bribing the soldiers, instructed them to say to the people that during the night, while they were asleep, the disciples of Jesus Christ came and stole the body of their Teacher. But this malicious and absurd invention of the enemies of Christ did not succeed: the truth of Christ’s Resurrection was in a short time testified to the whole world and became its possession.

Renewal Monday - Let Us Be Radiant (Fr. George Dorbarakis)

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“It is the day of Resurrection; let us be radiant, O peoples; Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha; for from death to life, and from earth to heaven, Christ God has led us across, as we sing the hymn of victory” (First Ode of the Resurrection Canon, Tone 1).

Saint John of Damascus, in the festal and triumphant first tone, offers us the outburst of his heart — an outburst of every believer who truly knows — for the feast of feasts, the Resurrection of the Lord. This is not, of course, the Passover of the Jews, during which they celebrate their passage through the Red Sea and thus their liberation from the slavery of the Egyptians — this event functioning as a prefiguration and prophecy of the Christian Pascha — but rather the Passover of the Lord, His Resurrection. By it the Lord, as the almighty God, having destroyed the kingdom of death by entering into it, granted eternal life to all the sorrowful souls of the dead — that is, He transferred them from death to life; and even more, He transferred all people from the earth, to which they were exclusively oriented, to heaven, where one can behold the face of God, where one now lives one’s true homeland, the Kingdom of God. For, according to the Apostle, after the redemptive work of the Lord, “we have no abiding city, but we seek the one to come,” which coming city is already experienced by the Christian in this world within the Church. “Therefore you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God.”

April: Day 13: Teaching 2: Saint Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome

April: Day 13: Teaching 2:
Saint Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome*
 
(On the Right Faith)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. To Saint Martin, whose memory is celebrated today, the Lord granted to be archshepherd in Rome at a time when the so-called Monothelite heresy was very strong. It consisted in this: that in Jesus Christ they acknowledged only one will — the divine — although they recognized in Him two natures, both divine and human. This false teaching had infected even Emperor Constans himself and even the Patriarch of Constantinople. But what does all this mean for a man firmly devoted to the truth? For him it is all the same — even if the whole world should fall away from the truth, he will not betray it. Such also was Saint Martin. The emperor demanded that Saint Martin accept the false teaching, but Martin did not agree and said: “Even if my body were torn into pieces, I will not depart from the orthodox teaching.” And indeed he did not depart. He was deprived of his rank and exiled into imprisonment, but his faith was not harmed. He remained Orthodox in belief until death. For this God rewarded him. When he departed, many miracles occurred from his relics.

Prologue in Sermons: April 13

The Lord Saves the Innocent From Slander and Punishes the Guilty

April 13

(A Word from the Paterikon about Daniel the Monk, how he raised a murdered man.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

People who have plunged into the depths of evil, when committing some wicked deed with every precaution, often think that, while carrying out their crime, no one has seen them, and therefore they are free from all responsibility for their sin. But they are grievously mistaken. From the all-seeing and just Lord they will not escape; and He, in one way or another, will find them and punish them, while those who have suffered innocently because of them He will justify and will make their innocence known.

Once the Venerable Daniel, passing by a certain place, saw that several men had seized and were holding one of the monks. The elder approached the detained man and asked: “For what reason have you been seized, and what is the cause of your detention?” The monk answered that he was being accused of murdering a man, of which he was completely innocent and knew nothing. Then the Venerable one asked: “Where, then, is the slain man?” They showed him.

Oration on the Lord's Resurrection (St. Amphilochios of Iconium)

Oration on the Lord's Resurrection 

By St. Amphilochios of Iconium

(Bright and great and wondrous is the present day,) ...a day of joy and gladness, beloved, a day of rejoicing and salvation, a day of illumination and sanctification, a day of peace and reconciliation; a day of restoration and renewal of our souls, a day truly great and wondrous and manifest. On this day Christ raised us up, cast down by sin; on this day Christ made us alive together, who had been dead in our transgressions; on this day He opened paradise, that we might partake of the tree of life — which is His precious and life-giving Body and Blood, through which we are cleansed and sanctified and illumined and renewed. For Christ gave Himself as a ransom for us all, and led us forth from death to life, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, and from enmity to true friendship; He redeemed us from the curse and from sin, becoming a curse for us, so that we might receive adoption as sons, so that we might no longer be slaves but free, no longer impassioned but dispassionate, no longer lovers of the world but lovers of God, no longer walking according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Homily for Great Saturday and the Holy Resurrection (Emperor Theodore II Doukas Laskaris)

Homily for Great Saturday and the Holy Resurrection 

By Emperor Theodore II Doukas Laskaris (+ 1258)

Christ is risen from the dead; this the angel said; this the women saw; this even the seals of Pilate testify; the empty tomb proclaims it loudly; the rolled-away stone bears witness; the guards are exposed by their flight; the watch confesses it and receives money; the high priests (Annas and Caiaphas) are proven guilty; Pilate feels shame; the centurion, at the tearing of the veil, believes; the sun had already shown it beforehand by darkening at the Cross; the resurrected bodies of the dead proclaimed the truth; all creation bore witness to the Resurrection, which took place at the end of the Sabbath, toward the beginning of the first day.

Rejoice, O people; Christ is risen from the dead; the testimony is entirely true. Be glad, you have been set free. Hades has been bound — rejoice; it is the day of Resurrection — lift up your voice; the Author of our salvation has risen from the dead. Let heaven and earth rejoice; behold, harmony between angels and men through the Resurrection. Rejoice, O plants; the death of Christ took place on the Cross, but through it the Resurrection was accomplished. He raised up Adam with Himself; Eve has been freed from her bonds; the prophets go before the Master; the kings, Solomon and David, offer hymns of victory.